Living in the Kingdom of God
I just received this e-mail:
Hi Damian,
It's been a while since the last article. Any plans to put up your newest
article. It's very refreshing and uplifting to read your articles.
Thank you.
Glen Kroon
Hounslow
Middlesex
United Kingdom
So, what do I write about? It is about time I said something new. Okay,
so I will write about living in the Kingdom of God. Frankly, for all the
talk about Cheon Il Guk, which is Korean for One Heavenly Nation, I am not
living in it. The reason for that is that I have not yet overcome my sinful
nature. The Kingdom of God is the place for people who have washed their
robes so that they can eat of the tree of life, but I have not done that
yet. I still have sinful nature.
Jesus told the story in Matthew
22:1-14 of a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son, and invited
many people to the feast but they did not come. So he instructed his servants
to invite people off the streets to attend the banquet, and they filled up
the wedding hall with guests. But the king ordered one man attending the
banquet to be tied hand and foot and cast out into the darkness because he
was not wearing wedding clothes.
To me, this is saying that if I have not removed my sinful nature, I
am not qualified to enter the Kingdom of God. How is there hope for anyone
then? How many of us have lived with the Divine Principle for years, if not
decades, and have given up on the basic premise of the Divine Principle? The
purpose of the Divine Principle is that when I apply it faithfully, I ought
to be able to remove my satanic nature, and inherit God's nature, that is,
become a divine being, just like God, Jesus and True Parents.
How come we have been living with the Divine Principle for so long
and been unable to accomplish its most basic premise? Why do I have evil
nature? Why is it so hard for me to be good? It is because I inherited
fallen blood from Satan through my parents and my fallen lineage. What does
this mean? Lucifer tempted Eve into an illicit sexual relationship and she
united in blood ties with him and inherited his nature, through sex. Then
Adam united with Eve, and he inherited her evil nature, through sex. So,
even though God created me to be His son, I inherited Satanic nature from
the fallen archangel Lucifer. So, I am not only a child of God, but in a
very real sense, I am the offspring of the devil, as we all are. We are
mutant beings, having the blood and nature of an alien species, the fallen
archangel. Our first ancestors obeyed Satan's word rather than God's word,
so they inherited Satan's nature rather than God's nature.
So, where does this evil nature come from? It is in my blood. I was
born with it, and the only way to remove it is to change my blood. What is
the process of changing my blood? It is the course of Restoration through
Indemnity. What is the purpose of this process? It is to remove my Satanic
nature, and to inherit God's nature. So, have you done that? I have not yet,
but I am making it my full time occupation.
How do I remove Satan's nature? I have to deny everything my Satanic
self likes, and do what I do not want to do. I have to deny the desires of
my flesh, and pursue unselfishness and love for others until Satan cannot
follow and he leaves. When I make that kind of sincere effort, then I chip
away at the common base I have with Satan and make a common base with God
who can then intervene to change my nature. I literally cannot do it on
my own. After many years of trying, I know that only God can do this in my
life. Hence the desperate need for prayer in my life. Also, I cannot do this
without the help of a substantial Abel in my daily life.
It is much easier to obey an invisible God than to obey a visible Abel. It
is so easy to say that I love God, but can I love the people I see every day,
in my home, or my work, or my church?
The Divine Principle talks about two conditions which must be met in order
to meet God. The first is the foundation of faith, and the second is the
foundation of substance. I prefer to think of it as Cain's course and then
Abel's course. In a nutshell, the foundation of faith is where Cain has to
practice absolute faith in and absolute obedience to Abel. I root out the
common base I have with Satan and remove my Satanic nature by this process.
Who can help me overcome my sin? It is someone who has overcome the
same sin I am wrestling with. This person is my mentor, my coach, or in
DP terminology, my Abel. I may need a different coach to overcome different
aspects of my evil nature, but if I apply myself, I truly believe that this
is a possible process. I need to have faith in and obedience to the person
standing as God's representative to me. To reverse the process of the fall, I
need to: (a) See Abel from God's point of view and love him as God loves him.
(b) Respect Abel as God's mediator (c) Obediently submit to Abel (d) Learn
God's will through Abel, and multiply goodness by anticipating God's wish
and acting on it without even being told.
Abel decides what conditions that Cain has to make in order to remove his
Satanic nature. He knows because he has already walked this path and overcome
the sin he is helping Cain overcome. Once I overcome enough of my sin, I
become qualified to guide others in this same process. This is the foundation
of substance or Abel's course.
I have to have the heart of a parent towards Cain to help him overcome
his Satanic nature. By praying desperately for a solution to overcome Cain's
Satanic nature, I have to have the sacrificial heart of a parent, as God
has for me. In the process, I develop God's heart towards people, and come
to inherit heavenly nature. This is what it means to take responsibility
for another human being. It means that I help him overcome his Satanic
nature. In the process of helping someone else overcome his Satanic nature,
I am growing by that very act of investing my whole heart and soul into the
life of another human being. If I am successful in this process, then I will
win the eternal loyalty and devotion of that person to the point where he
will risk his life to defend, protect and support me. That is the meaning
of restoring spiritual children.
I need to have a base of three people who are willing to lay down their
lives for me, because I already did that for them. These three people represent
the three archangels in the Garden of Eden. Only when I have restored three
people to this point am I qualified to have a sexual relationship. If I marry
and engage in a sexual relationship before having restored three people to
this level, then I am still in the realm of the fall, and my children will
not be born in the Kingdom of Heaven, but will still have Satanic nature.
Without three spiritual children, you cannot stand in the position of having
complete support from three archangels; your position remains in the fallen
realm and you are liable to Satan's claim at any moment. Also, the three
archangels should attend Adam and Eve for three years, in such total unity
that they would sacrifice everything to see the day of your Blessing. When
that three-year period is over, Adam should receive God's approval and say to
the archangels, with God's heart, "Please let me receive the Blessing with my
spouse-to-be, since I have grown to maturity." This is the principle of the
Unification Church. It is logical that you cannot receive the Blessing without
three spiritual children; it is absolutely impermissible. Whoever becomes
married without three spiritual children will remain in the fallen realm.
http://www.unification.net/gww/gww-36.html
Three Spiritual Children as a Foundation for a Family
The ultimate mediator between God and man is the Messiah, but he does
not live in my neighborhood, and I cannot see him on a day-to-day basis,
so I need someone to stand in his place to do the same job of representing
God's will to me, as I am so blind that I frequently cannot see it. My first
teacher and coach ought to be my conscience, but my conscience is imperfect
and needs to be educated by someone who has a higher standard than I do. On
the basis of practicing faith and obedience, then love will appear. As for
the absolute part, I am still working on being absolute. That would appear
to be the end of the process, so I will let you know when I get there.
So why did True Father instruct blessed couples on March 24, 2004
to stop having sex until we have entered the Kingdom of Heaven? It is because
until we gain the standard of heart which is beyond the fallen realm, then
sex will just generate evil energy, and drag us back into hell. Only when
I have left the fallen realm is sex permitted, and then only with a spouse
chosen by heaven. Then sex with my spouse will allow us both to receive
God's heavenly nature, from His participation in the sexual union. That
union is either a channel for God's love power to enter my life, and hers,
or Satan's evil power to enter my life, and that of my spouse. If I have sex
that is not drawing God's power and energy into my life, then I am drawing
Satan's power and energy into my life.
So why are our blessed couples stuck, unable to progress, unable to feel
God, or hope, or grace? It is because of illicit sexual desire and illicit
sexual behavior. The root of sin is illicit sex, and as long as we have not
attained the qualification for sex by leaving the fallen realm, by having
restored three disciples to the point where they would die for us, then all
sex is illicit.
We go to Chung Pyung to remove evil spirits and pay indemnity for our
ancestors, but when we come back, are we any better? If we do not remove the
common base that we have with Satan, then the evil spirits who left us will
come right back when we go back to our old environment and way of life. The
only way to restore our ancestors permanently is to remove our evil nature,
our selfishness, laziness, greed, arrogance, pride, lying, lustfulness,
desire for credit, showing off, insincerity, and so on, which is our common
base with Satan. The best way to make a common base with Satan is to engage
in illicit sex. It creates evil energy, which Satan delights in, and it fuels
his very existence. So, to remove my evil nature, a prerequisite is that I
must stop engaging in wrong sex. That includes masturbation, and allowing
myself to be sexually aroused by anyone other than my principled spouse.
If I do not have control over my sexual desire, then I am its slave. It is
as simple as that.
To make a common base with God, I need to live for the sake of others. The
first thing I can do for others is to remove my Satanic nature, to the point
where God can start to use me. Once I have done that, I can start to help
other people separate from Satan. This is the process of restoration. The
Messiah just needs a few good people who can break out of the fallen realm,
and lead other people to do the same. If we can do that, every problem in
this fallen world can be solved. Without doing that, all our efforts will be
in vain. Why? Because as long as Satan has control over our sexual organs,
he owns us, and can toy with us as he pleases. If you don't believe me,
look at yourself and examine what happens when your wrong sexual desire is
thwarted. What is your reaction when Father asks us to give up sex until we
enter the Kingdom of God? By that reaction will you know whether you belong
to God or the other guy, Satan.
If my sexual desire and love do not belong to God, then I am still
Satan's slave. Only by purifying my sexual desire, and having God come to
own it totally, can I become a being owned by God and able to be used as
His object. Once God owns me down to the root of my being, the root of my
life force, namely my sexual desire, only then can everything coming from
my heart be trusted to belong to God and God alone. Then naturally, my body
will follow the will and desire of my mind, which will then be one with God.
Once we accomplish the first blessing, individual perfection, then the
second and third will follow automatically.
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